Stephen Colbert: ‘He’s like an exchange student who just got back from Europe and keeps calling gas petrol.’
Photograph: YouTube

Late-night hosts on Wednesday discussed reports that Donald Trump wants to hold a military parade and the rightwing media’s smear campaign against the FBI.

Stephen Colbert: ‘He’s the Usain Bolt of stupid’

“We kid the president, but you’ve got to admit he is one of a kind,” Stephen Colbert began. “No one comes up with dumber ideas. He’s the Usain Bolt of stupid. His latest, record-setting dumb: Trump told the Pentagon to plan a military parade.”

“Check your cards,” Colbert joked. “Who has dictator bingo?”

“Traditionally, America doesn’t do military parades,” he continued. “When you’re the most powerful military in the world, you don’t need to show it off. The founding fathers didn’t want a standing army at all, and military parades were a European fetish. And not the kind that Ben Franklin got off on.”

Trump reportedly got the idea after seeing last year’s Bastille Day celebration in Paris. “Oh my gosh, he’s like an exchange student who just got back from Europe and keeps calling gas petrol,” Colbert said.

Colbert then further detailed the Washington Post report, which says Trump brought up the idea in the Pentagon’s “tank”, a room reserved for top-secret discussions.

“Keep in mind this is a room where they make big decisions like, do we got to war,” Colbert said, before imagining the exchange between Trump and his advisers. “Sir, Kim Jong-un is fueling his rockets on the launchpad. Do we engage with a first strike to cripple his command and control?”

“Uh huh, sounds good,” the host said, impersonating Trump. “General Kelly, I need you to go to Party City and get some red, white and blue streamers, some crazy stars, a hot glue gun, and some rickrack. We’re making a float.”

Samantha Bee: ‘I assume he paid that memo $130,000’

Samantha Bee discussed rightwing media’s reaction to the release of the Nunes memo.

She began: “While some of us were worried about the threat of having our faces melted off in a wave of nuclear heat, the media were distracted by the news cycle’s latest shiny, sweaty object, Republican congressman and first-guy-to-get-whacked-in-every-mafia-movie, Devin Nunes.”

“None of the revelations in the three-and-a-half-page document were that shocking, but this kind of was,” Bee continued, noting a report that said, before its release, Trump was “left alone” with the memo to read it privately.

“Left alone with the memo for several hours?” she said. “Then I assume he paid that memo $130,000, and no one but Donald and the memo will ever know what happened in that room.”

Bee then detailed some of the responses to the memo on Fox News, including broadcasters that called it the biggest corruption scandal in American history and proof of an FBI conspiracy against Trump.

“I haven’t heard Fox News be this anti-law enforcement since they had to grapple with The Mysteries of Laura,” the host joked. “But you know what? I’m glad you guys got woke. If you’re suddenly concerned about the FBI spying on American citizens, you are going to be outraged to learn that it’s not just Putin superfans like Carter Page. They also spy on other Americans.”

The host then discussed the bureau’s crackdown on what they call “black identity extremists”, a new government classification for domestic terror threats.

“Yes, there are people in the video saying reprehensible things about cops,” Bee said. “But as long as they’re not specific threats, our first amendment protects people who say horrible things. That’s why I can say the president fucked a memo, but I can’t say I’m going to fuck the president with a memo, and I never would.”

“To recap, the FBI is criminalizing being black and angry, chilling free speech and ignoring reasonable requests for information from black congresswomen,” Bee concluded. “Hey guys, tell me again how the FBI is an organization of leftwing, Hillary Clinton-loving hippies. Because it sounds to me like they fit right in to the Trump administration.”

Trevor Noah: ‘Trump’s really excited about getting to play with the army’

Trevor Noah of Comedy Central also weighed in on Trump’s desired military parade.

“America doesn’t need a big parade to convince the world that it has a military,” he began. “Trust me, the world knows America has a military. It’s in their countries right now.”

“Although Trump is really excited about getting to play with the army like they’re GI Joes, luckily most people are adults,” Noah continued, showing various lawmakers denouncing the idea and even a Fox News anchor calling it a waste of money.

Trevor Noah on Trump’s military parade.

“You know it’s bad when even Fox News thinks it’s a waste of money,” Noah said. “They’re like: ‘You can’t spend that much on a parade, you need to save it for sexual harassment settlements!’”

Noah continued: “Look, a military parade doesn’t mean Trump is going to be a dictator. But when you look at everything else, your spider-sense starts to tingle.”

Trump’s desire for a military parade reveals him as a would-be despot | Jonathan Freedland

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The host then invoked Trump’s firing FBI director James Comey, his accusations of voter fraud in the 2016 election, and his statement earlier this week that Democrats who didn’t applaud his State of the Union speech were “treasonous”.

“He even gave top government jobs to his own kids. None of this took us by surprise. The whole time Trump as running for president he couldn’t stop talking about how much he admired strongmen around the world,” Noah said, showing footage of Trump applauding Rodrigo Duterte’s handling of drug users in the Philippines and calling Kim a “smart cookie”.